(disclaimer: if your kid is totally into this sort of thing, I fully support their right to decorate however they want & you should skip over this whole post)
My Gen X inner core self is coming out to play today. Because as I’ve been looking at more of the stuff parents are selling on their college students’ behalf on D26’s college’s FB group for stuff to buy/sell/give away, HOLY COW…why do some college students have to have framed art prints for their dorm room?
Dude…you’re only going to live in the room for 10 months. One parent is asking $160 for 6 framed prints.
(get ready for the ‘back in my day’ moment)
Back in my day, back in the Stone Age of the early 90s going to college, there was no framed art work on the wall. Nobody had framed anything. You used tape to attach your band or movie posters to the wall of your room.
My parents got me a shower caddy, a couple of towels, bed linens, and a bedspread. That was it. The rest of it? Figure it out on your own, kiddo, good luck.
Never would have occurred to them to go and buy extra furniture to put in my dorm room. Like the bright turquoise blue/green satiny desk chair I saw for sale. Or curtains. Hanging curtains for your kid’s room. Nope. Not doing that.
And you can forget about the whole “each kid in the room has to match the decor of the roommate.” I don’t understand that either. I’ve asked both of my DDs about it and they both have said, “Uh, why would we decorate exactly like our roommates?”
Some people must spend thousands of $$ on all of this. Kind of blows me away sometimes. Like, why does the coffee maker have to be the same color as the dorm fridge?
I’ve seen some crazy photos online of girls’ dorm rooms from SEC schools where it’s like a home decorating magazine threw up all over the room. Don’t get me wrong…it looks great but it’s also super over the top. In one photo I saw, they had a 2-seater couch, coffee table, and 3 additional chairs to sit on in addition to the desk chairs (which were new/brought in from outside the college by the students).
I think maybe I’ve just been living under a rock all this time. Maybe it’s because of the nature of the high school my kids have attended…the students there all tend to embrace an attitude of “you be your own unique self and it doesn’t matter if you march to the beat of a different drum.” So like, hey, you’re into Japanese anime & manga and want to put anime posters all over your wall? GO FOR IT! Your friend wants to put up framed pink prints on their wall w/ivy garlands & twinkle lights? GO FOR IT!
You have both of that in the same dorm room? GO FOR IT!
…but it doesn’t all have to match. Variety & diversity is the spice of life.
Like…WHEN did it suddenly become a part of a girl’s “I must have the quintessential college experience” mindset that they have to have ALL of the things? maybe it’s an IG/Tiktok thing?
</end complaint session>
Thanks for listening. 